This invention relates to currency scanners and is particularly directed to improved means for scanning coins and bills to locate and identify valuable coins and bills.
Currency scanners have long been used to verify the authenticity of coins and bills, but have provided no additional information. However, it is well known that many coins and bills have enhanced value beyond their face value, due to errors in printing or coinage or scarcity of the particular coin or bill. Unfortunately nothing has been done heretofore to overcome this problem and people are deprived of considerable amounts of money because they do not recognize or appreciate the true value of their money. Thus, for example, a xe2x80x9cleadxe2x80x9d penny from World War II could be so corroded that it would look like a conventional copper penny and the owner could pass it thinking it was simply another copper penny when, in fact, it would be worth several dollars. However, most people are unaware of the potential value of such coins and bills and, hence, fail to check their money for such abnormalities and are thereby deprived of substantial amounts of money. Thus, none of the prior art scanning devices have been entirely satisfactory.
These disadvantages of the prior art are overcome with the present invention and improved currency scanners are provided which automatically compare each coin or bill with stored information concerning possible defects or rare items and alerts the person when an unusual coin or bill is located arid, hence, to enable the owner to recover the true value of such coins or bills.
These advantages of the present invention are preferably attained by providing improved currency scanning devices which are connected to computers having memories which contain information concerning coinage or printing errors and scarce coins or bills and which compare each coin or bill as it is scanned to identify and alert the user to coins or bills having enhanced value.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide improved currency scanners.
Another object of the present invention is to provide improved currency scanners for coins and bills which will immediately identify rare or unusual coins and bills and will alert the owner that such coins or bills have been located.
A further object of the present invention is to provide improved currency scanners for coins and bills which enable the users to recover the true value of rare or unusual coins or bills.
A specific object of the present invention is to provide improved currency scanners for coins and bills which are connected to computers having memories which contain information concerning coinage or printing errors and scarce coins or bills and which compare each coin or bill as it is scanned to identify and alert the user to such coins or bills.
These and other objects and features of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description, taken with reference to the figures of the accompanying drawing.